From the beginning perhaps the main reason Colangelo was eased out of his basketball specific role was because Leiweke and by extension Ujiri fundamentally disagreed with him on one issue: Colangelo was convinced the core he’d assembled — a 34-win team five years removed from the playoffs that will be over the NBA luxury tax threshold and without a pick in Thursday night’s draft — was only a few additions away from being a playoff team and ultimately a contender in the Eastern Conference.

Leiweke and Ujiri looked at an organization that lacked point-guard depth and had $33-million-a-year worth of small forwards and shooting guards who couldn’t shoot and still owed $20 million to Andrea Bargnani and vehemently disagreed.

When it became apparent that the status quo — the one presided over by him over the past seven years — was due for a major shakeup, Colangelo chose to step down rather than stand idly by as his decisions were picked apart and discarded one by one.

He couldn’t help but take it personally with each move perceived as a referendum on where he had steered the team.

That he couldn’t stay around is all the proof required that the Raptors are heading for a period of massive change, undoing much of what he had attempted to build.